England had already taken two wickets in the first session of the game early in the day in cloudy conditions against India at Edgbaston. The hosts dismissed openers Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara earlier in the day with the help of the evergreen James Anderson, who was making a comeback from an ankle injury.
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The veteran pacer removed Gill with a length delivery, tossed him into slips and then lofted a full length ball, which went a short distance away from the batsman. Pujara’s bat was hanging in front of the off-stump and he was stuck in no man’s land. The ball kissed the outside edge of the bat before passing into Jack Crawley’s hand.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Peterson says. “Sometimes all you have to say is, ‘That’s the great Jimmy Anderson.'”
He continued, “There will be balls you have to play on, which I think was one of them.”
Anderson’s probing spell kept India on their toes and provided opportunities at the other end.
“Jimmy Anderson is, on occasions, great. What do you do? You look at (Glenn) McGrath, (Wasim) Akram, (Shawn) Pollock, he’s just as good, if not better, of those guys. in comparison, especially in these situations.”
Speaking about India, Pietersen launched a strong defense for former India skipper Virat Kohli, who has failed to score big runs for quite some time now.
“The boy is a great player, that boy is a genius,” Pietersen said. “Tell me one player who hasn’t gone through a bad phase in his career.”
“Some great players have been thrown out, they’ve just been parked really.
He further added that Kohli gets pressure because of his greatness and life has become a full circle for him.
“He’s obviously going to get pressure, but we’ve all been there, it’s the circle of life, you’re never good around that circle.”
Virat Kohli though did not do well in the first innings of the game, scoring just 11 runs in 19 balls. In the 25th over of the first innings, he bowled Matthew Potts on the stumps.